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Old 03-06-2008, 05:01 PM   6 links from elsewhere to this Post. Click to view. #1 (permalink)
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Angry Content theft strikes again

I wanted to draw attention to this because it affects all content creators, and I am a huge fan of Cel Edman's sculptypaint program. Cel has taken down the website in protest, with the following message:

Quote:
I decided to take down Sculptypaint site for the next few days.
Why?

Well there are a number of reasons. I love to create, and write creation tools, that I offer free to download as well. Love the positive response of the majority of people, but the same time.
- People threatning me in real life, that I filed a DMCA complain against.
- I got serious hate mail, about my software thats free to download for everyone.
- The way Linden act on DMCA and copyright infrigment.

Like one person modified my artwork, removed my name and copyright, and have been selling my items for 6 months now.. Using an army of bots to get #1 in the search. I file a DMCA, wait 2 months, Linden removes the vendor boxes. And the next week the person is selling the same stuff again. I filed already 3 times in a row a DMCA takedown to this person, and still this person with 'Payment info on file' is running around in SL. Also selling other artist work.

Another person has a huge record on selling stolen goods in sl, created by me and other artist. Selling stolen items for the last 12 months now, all the DMCA takedowns he received he calls just a joke. and continues this 'bussiness'. The person got 'payment info on file' and his own sim.

- Yesterday I learned about the 'mental mentors' group in Second Life. This group is for mentors in Second Life, who's goal is to help Newbie`s, educate teach, lead, guide and so on. Great..
This group is rather big, about 800+ people/mentors.

I found out several of my sculptpacks I sell are offered as freebee`s by the leader(s) of this group. For several months now.
A 'mentor starter pack' is given out to all mentors, to help the helpless newbees in SL.

I released my latest SFT-pack around 14 februari 2008. Only a few days later, this pack I created was repackaged, my copyright notices and TOS removed, (all the sculpties clearly state not for individual resell/repackage). The whole pack was distributed as a freebee pack too about 800+ mentors in SL, to use and to give away 'to help the newbees'.

If this group was called 'robbers from SL' I would not care a second, but from a mentor group.. Who`s goal to educate, teach, help and lead in SL?! unbelievable.

You must know, I only can continue developing Sculptypaint and other free creation tools by selling my work in SL.
No income - no time - no coding - no tools - simple as that.

I'm sick and tired about all this crap that sucks all the creative energy out of me, standing alone in the cold here for such a long time. So decided to put a statement here for the next few days. Hope you understand.

Have a nice day!
Elout de Kok - march 6, 2008
SL: Cel Edman


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Old 03-06-2008, 05:10 PM   #2 (permalink)
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Damn, that just reeks. Doesn't anyone at LL have a sense of ethics in these matters?
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Old 03-06-2008, 05:14 PM   #3 (permalink)
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This sux. <sigh>
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Old 03-06-2008, 05:19 PM   #4 (permalink)
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This isn't the first time I've heard bad things about this group, sadly.
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Old 03-06-2008, 05:30 PM   #5 (permalink)
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I don't understand why people immediately expect LL to take responsibility in handling IP cases.

Don't get me wrong, I am by no means an apologist for Linden Lab. But they only provide the platform for content creation. They can be reasonably expected to provide tools which assist in defense of your creations against blatant copying, but it seems to me like violation of resident-imposed terms of use on their creations and Digital Millennium Copyright takedowns are a process to be handled though the government's judicial system if one expects to see results.

Sure, it's arguably even more painful to deal with the government than with LL, but I don't see how it can be made the responsibility of anyone other than the creator to proactively defend their intellectual property.

If a DMCA takedown is ignored, that is ammunition for further legal action, where information will be officially subpoenaed from Linden Lab regarding the account holder in violation of the takedown, whose ass is then dragged to court.

I guess it's more convenient to just say "Oh, LL is refusing to ban this person after I have taken the initial, basic steps in fighting them. This is all their fault." though.

</ranting>

I'm off to hide in my corner, again!
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Old 03-06-2008, 05:34 PM   #6 (permalink)
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FFS.
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Old 03-06-2008, 05:39 PM   #7 (permalink)
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Honestly, most people aren't going to spend the time and money over dragging someone to court unless they are Stroker or some other person who has a lot of money invested in this.

:\
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Old 03-06-2008, 05:42 PM   #8 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Io Zeno View Post
Honestly, most people aren't going to spend the time and money over dragging someone to court unless they are Stroker or some other person who has a lot of money invested in this.

:
Not to mention the complications associated with cross border disputes.
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Old 03-06-2008, 05:45 PM   #9 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Cel
I got serious hate mail, about my software thats free to download for everyone.
What's this about? Competitors angry he released a good program for free, or people who weren't happy with his free software?
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Old 03-06-2008, 05:50 PM   #10 (permalink)
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Originally Posted by Wildefire Walcott View Post
What's this about? Competitors angry he released a good program for free, or people who weren't happy with his free software?
I can only guess that some content creators are not pleased that he has written sofware which makes it easier to create that content = more competition.
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Old 03-06-2008, 06:08 PM   #11 (permalink)
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both apparently

LL need to dissolve the Mentor group.
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Old 03-06-2008, 06:29 PM   #12 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Sobriquet Kryakutnoy View Post
I don't understand why people immediately expect LL to take responsibility in handling IP cases.

Don't get me wrong, I am by no means an apologist for Linden Lab. But they only provide the platform for content creation. They can be reasonably expected to provide tools which assist in defense of your creations against blatant copying, but it seems to me like violation of resident-imposed terms of use on their creations and Digital Millennium Copyright takedowns are a process to be handled though the government's judicial system if one expects to see results.

Sure, it's arguably even more painful to deal with the government than with LL, but I don't see how it can be made the responsibility of anyone other than the creator to proactively defend their intellectual property.

If a DMCA takedown is ignored, that is ammunition for further legal action, where information will be officially subpoenaed from Linden Lab regarding the account holder in violation of the takedown, whose ass is then dragged to court.

I guess it's more convenient to just say "Oh, LL is refusing to ban this person after I have taken the initial, basic steps in fighting them. This is all their fault." though.

</ranting>

I'm off to hide in my corner, again!
In the long history of SL, LL has never once flatly and resolutely weighed in and said "Stop doing this. It's unacceptable." While you have a point, and I have said this as well, that if they ignore the DMCA they open themselves up to lawsuit, most people who do not make a lot of money in SL and create content as a hobby don't have the finances and resources to sue LL. Not to mention filing a DMCA on their ISP would shut down at least half of SL depending on what ISP you target, which is something people are reasonably hesitant to do.

Given that for so many years the promotional materials LL provided championed this atmosphere of "HEY LOOK! They MADE all this!" some of us expect a little bit more respect from LL on this. Willingness to follow through on the DMCA. Clearly saying that content theft is unacceptable. To date they have not done this, at best you can get a handful of wishy-washy Lindens almost complaining, others do not care. Given that we built SL, we made it popular, most of us are hobbyists and not in it to make money, but to share creativity and tools with others, I don't think it's unreasonable to expect that LL be more proactive in taking care of the content creators first.
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Old 03-06-2008, 06:35 PM   #13 (permalink)
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Erm, I never mentioned bringing lawsuit against Linden Lab . I was saying the exact opposite. Subpoenaing account data out of LL would not entail DMCAing their colocation facilities, unless you really felt like playing dirty.

For that matter, could DMCA even be used against their colo? I imagine they would have it shot down in no time.
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Old 03-06-2008, 06:38 PM   #14 (permalink)
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I misread your sentence.

You're incorrect about how the DMCA works then. If they ignore it, LL gets involved in a lawsuit. You can already subpoena them without a DMCA at all to obtain account information.

The point is LL is legally obligated to respond to takedown notices. If they did this in a timely manner, and an effective manner-- IE, removing ALL instances of infringing content, NOT just what is visible but what is also in inventories across accounts-- then this would be less of an issue. This is what we're asking for.
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Old 03-06-2008, 06:39 PM   #15 (permalink)
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Further I wish someone would file a takedown notice on one of their ISPs. I expect discovering half the network was pulled offline would wake them up incredibly fast.
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Old 03-06-2008, 06:51 PM   #16 (permalink)
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Quote:
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Further I wish someone would file a takedown notice on one of their ISPs. I expect discovering half the network was pulled offline would wake them up incredibly fast.
I think its just a matter of time before this happens. Maybe not.
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Old 03-06-2008, 06:59 PM   #17 (permalink)
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Old 03-06-2008, 07:08 PM   #18 (permalink)
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I never suggested LL would ignore a DMCA notice either
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Old 03-06-2008, 07:11 PM   #19 (permalink)
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Quote:
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I never suggested LL would ignore a DMCA notice either
I didn't say you did.

They do ignore them, however. And when they do respond it's half assed.

As I've said about this repeatedly they're already in the legal red zone on this. It takes someone fronting the money for a lawsuit to set the point though.
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Old 03-06-2008, 08:15 PM   #20 (permalink)
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Isn't LL in a no-win situation, tho? I mean, LL can't make a guarantee that a DMCA takedown is fully implemented, right? I mean, as long as they broadcast the source code of your creation to every client that displays it, thieves will steal. And even if LL bans every DMCA violation that comes down the pike (which is a facist can of worms I wouldn't want opened), they could make no guarantees the person won't just come in with another avatar...regardless of any layers of security they put on registering.

I hate content theft. It's degrading to the artist and causes so much anger. But it will not go away; anymore than the RIAA will fully stop pirated music or the computing industry will eliminate virus makers.

I'm failing to see the benefit of getting angry about it anymore. In fact, I see no benefit...just more people getting tired of a service that in the end still has more creative potential than most pursuits on the Net.
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Old 03-06-2008, 08:19 PM   #21 (permalink)
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They're required to make a good-faith attempt to remove infringing content. Right now to them that constitutes simply deleting what's in world. They won't delete stuff that's in the inventory of the person breaking the rules though.

Which means if I steal "Liona Clio's Hat Store" and rez it myself, at best a DMCA will delete what's on the sim. Nothing prevents me from taking the same copy I have in-inventory already and rezzing it somewhere else you don't know about.

I doubt that covers them. They should remove the asset entirely. Nothing will prevent the person from stealing that again, but hopefully the extra work involved would be enough of a deterrent until they get the point.

I also think a hash-ban on accounts that repeatedly have content removed because of a DMCA is not out of the question either.
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Old 03-06-2008, 08:25 PM   #22 (permalink)
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*nod* Although if I ever start making hats, I give you full perm rights, Josh. Hmmm, maybe a nice sombrero...
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